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The purpose of this spiritual collection dedicated to the pious memory of Father Henry La Praz, is to make known by it an authentic figure of a priest and to render thanks to God who has gladdened His Church which is in the middle of a crisis concerning the priesthood. The various writings which compose the collection, either in his hand or that of his relatives and friends, are free of all literary artifice. However, they highlight, in their very simplicity, the priestly ideal lived simply day by day and pursued with energy by a young priest who was truly a priest. Divine Wisdom proposed the way of physical suffering and total detachment to Henry La Praz. He was, as Our divine Saviour on the Cross, completely priest and victim. Entering fully into this providential plan, He embraced the Cross with ardour and carried it with courage as the instrument by which, as a priest and solely priest, he was to save many souls. While God was purifying him as gold in the crucible, letting him feel the limits of human strength in the face of pain, He was fortifying him incredibly by His divine strength, making him confess as St. Paul did in one of his tribulations: "For when I am weak, then I am powerful!" (II Cor. XII, 10) In Father La Praz therefore, there shone radiantly both the gift of fortitude which made him a continual winner and the gift of wisdom which made of him a soul imbued with a deep life of prayer and also truly apostolic. Through the reading of these pages, and the intercession of him whom we have reason to consider blessed, may the hearts of many sons of the Catholic Church be moved to the efficacious desire of Christian and priestly sanctity. Menzingen,
April 19th, 1994
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